Humanverse

Misa vs Misael

American parents have registered 10,411 Misaels since 1880, against 765 Misas. Misael is still ahead, with 359 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Misa against Misael, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Misa Misael

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Misael has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1955 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1968, when Misa had 7 and Misael had 8.

Side by side

  Misa Misael
Total US births 76510,411
Most in one year 26385
Babies in 2025 14359
Estimated living today 75010,000
Median age today 2017
Peak year 20112006
Best rank 5,207th girls616th boys
Rank in 2025 7,491st733rd
First recorded 19681955
Girls / boys 765 / 016 / 10,395

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Misas alive today are over 20; half the Misaels are over 17. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Misa Misael
France 585

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Misa and Misael.